Combined focused electron beam-induced deposition and etching for the patterning of dense lines without interconnecting material

High resolution dense lines patterned by focused electron beam-induced deposition (FEBID) have been demonstrated to be promising for lithography. One of the challenges is the presence of interconnecting material, which is often carbonaceous, between the lines as a result of the Gaussian line profile. We demonstrate the use of focused electron...

Mechanical characterization of nanopillars by atomic force microscopy

Micro- and nano-patterns are gaining increasing attraction in several fields ranging from nanoelectronics to bioengineering. The mechanical properties of the nanostructures (nanopillars, nanotubes, nanowires, etc.) are highly relevant for many applications but challenging to determine. Existing mechanical characterization methods require...

Understanding the influence of three-dimensional sidewall roughness on observed line-edge roughness in scanning electron microscopy images

Background: Line-edge roughness (LER) is often measured from top-down critical dimension scanning electron microscope (CD-SEM) images. The true three-dimensional roughness profile of the sidewall is typically ignored in such analyses. Aim: We study the response of a CD-SEM to sidewall roughness (SWR) by simulation. Approach: We generate...

Electron beam-induced deposition of platinum from Pt(CO)₂Cl₂ and Pt(CO)₂Br₂

Two platinum precursors, Pt(CO)₂Cl₂ and Pt(CO)₂Br₂, were designed for focused electron beam-induced deposition (FEBID) with the aim of producing platinum deposits of higher purity than those deposited from commercially available precursors. In this work, we present the first deposition experiments...

Understanding the influence of 3D sidewall roughness on observed line-edge roughness in scanning electron microscopy images

Line-edge roughness (LER) is often measured from top-down critical dimension scanning electron microscope (CD-SEM) images. The true three-dimensional roughness profile of the sidewall is typically ignored in such analyses. We study the response of a CD-SEM to sidewall roughness (SWR) by simulation. We generate random rough lines and spaces,...

Surface effects in simulations of scanning electron microscopy images

Background: Monte Carlo simulations of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images ignore most surface effects, such as surface plasmons. Previous experiments have shown that surface plasmons play an important role in the emission of secondary electrons (SEs).Aim: We investigate the influence of incorporating surface plasmons into simulations...

Surface effects in simulations of scanning electron microscopy images

We have investigated the contributions of surface effects to Monte Carlo simulations of top-down scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images. The elastic and inelastic scattering mechanisms in typical simulations assume that the electron is deep in the bulk of the material. In this work, we correct the inelastic model for surface effects. We...

Sensitivity of secondary electron yields and SEM images to scattering parameters in MC simulations

In the simulation of secondary electron yields (SEY) and secondary electron microscopy (SEM) images, there is always the question: are we using the correct scattering cross-sections?. The three scattering processes of interest are quasi-elastic phonon scattering, elastic Mott scattering and inelastic scattering using the dielectric function...

Determination of line edge roughness in low-dose top-down scanning electron microscopy images

We investigated the off-line metrology for line edge roughness (LER) determination by using the discrete power spectral density (PSD). The study specifically addresses low-dose scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images in order to reduce the acquisition time and the risk of resist shrinkage. The first attempts are based on optimized elliptic...

Parallel electron-beam-induced deposition using a multi-beam scanning electron microscope

Lithography techniques based on electron-beam-induced processes are inherently slow compared to light lithography techniques. The authors demonstrate here that the throughput can be enhanced by a factor of 196 by using a scanning electron microscope equipped with a multibeam electron source. Using electron-beam induced deposition with MeCpPtMe3...

Brightness limitations of cold field emitters caused by Coulomb interactions

Emission theory predicts that high brightness cold field emitters can enhance imaging in the electron microscope. This (neglecting chromatic aberration) is because of the large (coherent) probe current available from a high brightness source and is based on theoretically determined values of reduced brightnesses up to 1014?A/(m2?sr?V). However,...

Atomic radical abatement of organic impurities from electron beam deposited metallic structures

Focused electron beam induced processing (FEBIP) of volatile organometallic precursors has become an effective and versatile method of fabricating metal-containing nanostructures. However, the electron stimulated decomposition process responsible for the growth of these nanostructures traps much of the organic content from the precursor’s ligand...

Electron beam irradiation of dimethyl-(acetylacetonate) gold(III) adsorbed onto solid substrates

Electron beam induced deposition of organometallic precursors has emerged as an effective and versatile method for creating two-dimensional and three-dimensional metal-containing nanostructures. However, to improve the properties and optimize the chemical composition of nanostructures deposited in this way, the electron stimulated decomposition...

On the influence of the sputtering in determining the resolution of a scanning ion microscope

The determination of the quality of an imaging system is not an easy task for, in general, at least three parameters, strictly interdependent, concur in defining it: resolution, contrast, and signal-to-noise ratio. The definition of resolution itself in scanning microscopy is elusive and the case of scanning ion microscopy is complicated by the...

Positioning Pd catalyst particles for carbon nanotube growth using charge patterns created with a scanning electron microscope

Positioning of charged nanoparticles with the help of charge patterns in an insulator substrate is a known method. However, the creation of charge patterns with a scanning electron microscope for this is relatively new. Here a scanning electron microscope is used for the creation of localized charge patterns in an insulator, while a glowing wire...

Electron postgrowth irradiation of platinum-containing nanostructures grown by electron-beam-induced deposition from Pt(PF3)4

The material grown in a scanning electron microscope by electron beam-induced deposition (EBID) using Pt(PF3)4 precursor is shown to be electron beam sensitive. The effects of deposition time and postgrowth electron irradiation on the microstructure and resistivity of the deposits were assessed by transmission electron microscopy, selected area...

Sputtering limits versus signal-to-noise limits in the observation of Sn balls in a Ga+ microscope

In principle, a scanning ion microscope can produce smaller probe sizes than a scanning electron microscope because the diffraction contribution is smaller. However, the imaging resolution is often severely limited by the sputtering damage. In this article, an experimental procedure to establish the limit of a focused ion beam system for imaging...

Biological applications of an LCoS-BASED PROGRAMMABLE ARRAY MICROSCOPE (PAM)

We report on a new generation, commercial prototype of a programmable array optical sectioning fluorescence microscope (PAM) for rapid, light efficient 3D imaging of living specimens. The stand-alone module, including light source(s) and detector(s), features an innovative optical design and a ferroelectric liquid-crystal-on-silicon (LCoS)...